Today’s game against the Steelers was starting to look like last year’s debacle, and a return of the malaise that plagued the Patriots for so many years. Horrific penalties, bad bounces at the the worst time – often resulting in turnovers, and injuries. Harrison and Light both having to be carted out.

The offensive line seemed to crumble when Light went out. And the Steelers were completing big pass plays. As a long-time Pats fan I’d seen days like this before. Days when everything went wrong. When the score was 13-7 and the Bad Mojo was whipping the Pats like dogs I switched it off to go get groceries. I don’t know why I did – as bad as things were going the Steelers were still only up six. New Englanders have long memories, and the Pats for so many years really stunk.

But not today.

Or the price of gasoline.

In response to Katrina messing up oil production, there’s now a push for legislation to raise the average miles per gallon for cars sold in the US. This is being held up by congress as something that will benefit The People … who are “sick of high gas prices.”

Which sounds good on the surface. More efficient cars means we use less gas and spend less. But …

Where does one start writing about this event?

Well, lets start at the top. “Where was Bush?” should be a question which is asked a lot when reviewing the first few days of the tragedy when immediate action was needed. A lot of people despised Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911″, but the similarity of W’s response in the initial aftermath of that event (as portrayed in the movie, anyway) and to Katrina are strangely similar. Hey, he was on vacation, godamnit!

I’ll give him credit for going down there, but it was too little too late. And the barrage of talking points his handlers have him emit just make him sound less and less credible over time.

Well I think last night was the last episode of this show I can watch. It ended with a captured insurgent blowing himself and his fellow prisoners up. And it started with the pain-in-the-ass officer getting his guts blown out by a mine (I assume it was a mine).

“Over There” is just over the top in terms of pointless and graphic violence. You can see more guts hanging out in 15 minutes than you saw in all of “Apocalypse Now” or “Full Metal Jacket.” Even Sam Peckinpah’s “Cross of Iron” – which was brutal for it’s day back in the 1970′s – is tame in comparison.

There’s no point for it in “Over There” other than sensationalism. Blood is ratings.